Doha, Qatar: The business bilateral ties between Qatar and Switzerland “look promising” with possibilities of soaring businesses and investments, an official has said.

Initiatives such as the Qatar-Swiss innovation programme are expected to bolster the ongoing constructive relations between the countries, said the Ambassador of Switzerland to Qatar H E Florence Tinguely Mattli.

During the recently held Swiss Business Council Qatar awards ceremony, she told The Peninsula that the organisations are contributing their best to the economy and paving the way toward opening new doors and opportunities.

She said, “We are definitely having programmes in innovation that we want to specifically target, including AI, life science but also digitalisation and areas in the research and development and innovation in Switzerland”.

“This is really our focus with the help of the companies in the Swiss Business Council to help spot Invention, investment, or possibilities and also matching innovative companies with Qatar innovation with research centres,” the Ambassador noted.

Stressing the joint innovation and research projects between the Embassy of Switzerland to Qatar and the Swiss Business Council Qatar, Ambassador Mattli said “We work very closely together, and we recently had an initiative on corporate social responsibility benefitting Swiss companies and businesses here.”

She emphasised that Qatar and the UN have issued a joint initiative - the ‘UN Code of Conduct’ for employers of domestic workers. “This is one of the initiatives I would like to push now to encourage employees of Swiss companies to join and abide to basic rules for domestic workers and this is again totally in support of this initiative by the Qatari Government and the International Labour Organisation.

The envoy lauded the “dynamic interest” of the two countries across various realms including research and innovation.

“I think that Qatar reaching the third phase of the vision 2030 makes it even more interesting for Swiss companies because the country is turning into a knowledge-based economy and Switzerland is very much a good cutting age of new technologies,” she added.

The official concluded by saying that the country is an interesting destination for Swiss research companies and expertise and hence the relations between Qatar and Switzerland remain solid.

As per the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade, Switzerland imports from Qatar amounted to $314.48m in 2023, while the exports reached $886.19m in the same year.

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